In order to create great legal website content for your law firm you'll need to forget what you think about it and focus on what your target audience wants to engage with.
If you can create law firm website content that is authentic, demonstrates your expertise and builds trust, then you'll be able to generate traffic and enquiries for your law firm for months and years to come.
Here’s how law firm websites that we work with do it.
Content rules for law firm websites
Strategy
Where does website content fit into your overall law firm marketing strategy?
Your end goal is to generate leads and when thinking about the time and Resources needed to create website content it's important to think about the role that it will play in your overall marketing strategy.
For example you may create response content for your website whereby you answer common questions that people are asking in Google that are specific to your services.
Website Content Goals
Better to create any content than no content at all?
Possibly… probably… There's definitely value in experimenting and creating content and then seeing what works and what doesn't. however most law firms don't have the resource or time let alone money to invest in producing content scale isn't going to hit the mark.
If your only objective is to create content for the sake of it then by all means go ahead.
However we recommend having goal in mind for your law firm’s website content.
Content marketing for law firms is but one channel that makes up part of your wider marketing strategy.
Website content should serve three purposes
To attract potential clients via search engines, social media channels and email
To engage visitors through your expertise and quality of content
To persuade visitors that they should take the next step and enquire when they need legal services
Audience
Who are you creating content for?
It's not for you, your staff, partners or anyone else, other than the people you are trying to engage as paying clients.
Understand what it is that your audience are looking for and how you can give them value. When it comes to websites, you also need to understand their behaviours, the devices they use and the demographics they belong to in order to make assumptions about how you can best position your content.
For example, if you are a conveyancing solicitor looking to engage first time buyers, then you might find that your audience are using mobile devices more than most, to make decisions about which law firm to use.
Your content therefore needs to be concise and persuasive by telling them as soon as possible how you can help and why they should choose you.
It's not a one-size-fits-all approach. It depends on the entry point to your website, but if somebody has landed on your whiplash compensation page then it's very clear what they are looking for.
Your page therefore needs to be geared towards telling them how you can help them to achieve being awarded whiplash compensation.
Before creating content, it's a good idea to do a small bit of audience profiling where you can determine the needs of your ideal client.
These are often referred to as “user-stories”, and go a bit like this:
As a [persona], I [want to], [so that]
These personas will differ wildly depending on the legal services you are providing, but here are a few examples:
"As Paula, I want to quickly understand how divorce works, so that I can protect myself and my kids financially for the future."
Creating user stories like this can help you create multi-faceted content strategies around each area - from the catchall “10 essential things to know about divorce” to the more specific “Protecting your financial assets during a divorce”.
The great news is that you can use your experience to draw out the individual issues that your target clients are looking to overcome.
Next you can tackle how to solve their problems.
Be authentic
It may sound like an obvious point to make, but if you can be authentic, then people are more likely to have an affinity with you.
If potential clients are reading your content and it sounds exactly the same as every other website that they visited, the chances of them enquiring with you are reduced.
However, if your content has a strand of your own values, beliefs and honesty running through it, then it can set you apart and make people believe in it.
For example, imagine a lawyer who uses slang words or writes in more of a casual way on their website.
Maybe instead of using the word for “forthwith” they say “immediately”.
It can be as simple as using colloquialisms or dialect that people understand.
You aren't trying to impress your reader's with legalese, you are trying to connect with them.
Experience
The ongoing narrative in all of your content should be your experience.
Don't just tell people about the law and explain what it is, when you can demonstrate how you would help people like them to overcome similar legal problems.
You might be able to use your own experiences to comment on a new story or a change to a law that may affect people.
Using your experience in your content is a great way of building up trust and ensuring that people decide to choose you ahead of a law firm who haven't demonstrated their experience.
Trust
Do people trust you straight away? Being authentic and demonstrating your experience as suggested above are good ways to help you build trust.
Another great way are case studies and reviews.
While it can be tricky to get and show reviews from certain clients in sensitive legal services, if you are able to tell stories from clients who you’ve helped, it can really help other people to make a decision on whether to make an enquiry with you.
Website experience
There’s little point in creating great content for your website, if your website experience is poor.
Earlier in 2021, Google moved to mobile first indexing. That means that when ranking your content in search engine results they take into consideration the mobile experience of your website.
How accessible it is to the user on mobile devices as well as other issues such as load times and speed can make a big difference to what Google thinks of your website.
It can also make a big difference to whether users stay on your site or not.
So design for mobile first.
Think about:
- how easy it is for mobile users to contact you?
- how easy it is for them to click on links (design for fat fingers!)?
- how well laid out information is - what on-page sign posts do you use?
- how easy are your forms to use on mobile?
- how do you support text with images and video?
- how are your users engaging with your content - e.g. is it at home on the sofa or while walking in the park?
Creating great legal website content
Now you know what the pillars of great content for law firm websites are, it's time to look at how to go about creating great content.
What to write about?
Remember we talked about creating user stories, this is a great way of deciding what problems at both a macro and micro-level your potential clients are going to have.
For example, they may have a family law issue, but dig deeper, they may have a specific question about child custody for Fathers or who gets the house after a divorce.
A great starting point is for you to write down all of the questions that clients ask you for any legal services that you are an expert in.
Start with a service, for example, residential conveyancing:
Your target clients are looking for a conveyancing solicitor but before that they may ask various questions to help them make a decision. These questions include things like
- do I need a solicitor to buy a house?
- what does a property solicitor do?
- how much does a conveyancing solicitor cost?
- can I move house without a solicitor?
The above questions can be sections in one big guide about property conveyancing or they could be the individual pieces of content, for example of short videos or short blogs that specifically answer the questions asked. When it comes to solicitors fees for conveyancing it could be that there are various considerations that go in to make the content.